Students offer solutions at Wake Forest’s Retail Health Innovation challenge

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Students at Wake Forest University School of Business over the weekend looked to share potential innovations in retail health care at the 2015 Retail Health Innovation Challenge, which was sponsored by CVS Health.

The challenge called on students to offer a two-minute pitch to a panel of judges, which included representatives from CVS Health, Johnson & Johnson’s McNeil Consumer Healthcare and the National Association of Chain Drug Stores.

Teams could use props or prototypes, but not slideshows or AV equipment. Five finalists moved on to give half-hour pitches to the judges, with Johns Hopkins University’s BHest Medical team taking $25,000 first-place prize for its surgical solution aimed at reducing spinal fluid leakage.

“This competition empowers students for one of the greatest competitions of all: helping people lead lives of health and wellness,” NACDS president and CEO Steve Anderson, who judged and gave the keynote address, said. “Retail locations in neighborhoods throughout the nation are playing an ever-increasing role in that effort, and the participating students are positioning themselves to help lead the innovations of tomorrow, for the ultimate benefit of patients and consumers.”

Empowering students led to some impressive results, according to Oray Boston, McNeil Consumer Healthcare sales and marketing VP.

“It’s bigger than retail. It’s about health,” Boston said. “What I loved about this was no person walked in and was like ‘let me tell you how I’m going to get this into retail.’ They were talking about how to live a healthier life, whether it was a medical device, a supplement or a new therapy.”